A leading medical ethicist has likened media coverage of the Australian Study of Health and Relationships to the ‘cloud cuckoo land’ press conferences of the former Iraq Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf.

Dr Amin Abboud of UNSW labelled the most comprehensive study of sexuality ever undertaken in this country ‘as misleading as Iraqi press releases’.

Dr Abboud said the survey was ‘a mechanistic analysis’ in the tradition of ‘the flawed and agenda driven Kinsey report’.

“Mechanistic statistics on sex dissociate sexuality from the big strategic issues like commitment, security, meaning and family.”

Conducted over the phone, 27 per cent of people refused to respond, further clouding the veracity of the results.